- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Lindisfarne Castle
- Date
- 1796 - 1797
- Medium and Support
- Graphite, watercolour and bodycolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 38.1 × 51.8 cm, 15 × 20 ⅜ in
- Inscription
‘Girtin’ lower centre, by Thomas Girtin (the signature has been cut, suggesting that it once extended onto an original mount which has been lost); ‘Mackenzie’ on the back, in pen and ink
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour; Visible Fold in the Paper
- Subject Terms
- Castle Ruins; Coasts and Shipping; Durham and Northumberland
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1113
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 185 as 'Lindisfarne Castle, Northumberland (Called also Holy Island Castle)'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001 and 2009
Provenance
'Hopkins', as 'St Michael's Mount' (Girtin and Loshak, 1954); J. Palser & Sons (stock no.16096); bought by Roger Fry (1866–1934) for the Museum, 17 October 1906
Exhibition History
New York, 1953, no.89; Detroit, 1968, no.113; Katonah, 1979, no.12; New Haven, 1986a, not in the catalogue; Denver, 1993, no.46; London, 2009, no.17
Bibliography
Redgrave and Redgrave, 1866, vol.1, pp.393–94, p.397; Fry, 1907, p.202; New York, 1951, p.16; Girtin and Loshak, 1954, pp.62–63; Holcomb, 1974, p.34, p.43, pp.56–57; Morris, 1986, p.16; Smith, 2002b, p.13, p.82, p.133; Bryant, 2005, p.82; Simms, 2008, pp.20–21
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1796 Northern Tour to Yorkshire, the North East and the Scottish Borders:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours

Bamburgh Castle, from the South
Cragside House, Northumberland (National Trust)

Durham Cathedral, from the South West
British Museum, London

The Ouse Bridge, York, from the North Shore
British Museum, London

The Ouse Bridge, York, from Skeldergate Postern
York Art Gallery

York: The New Walk on the Banks of the Ouse
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

York Minster, from the South West
Private Collection

York Minster, from the South West
Private Collection

York Minster, from the Ouse, with St Mary’s Abbey
Harewood House, Yorkshire

The South Side of York Minster, Showing the Transept and the Western Towers
Private Collection, Yorkshire

York Minster, from the South East, Layerthorpe Bridge and Postern to the Right
British Museum, London

Unidentified Gothic Ruins, Said to Be St Mary’s Abbey, York
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

A Distant View of Ripon Minster, from the River Skell
Private Collection

A Distant View of Ripon Minster, from the River Skell
Harewood House, Yorkshire

A Distant View of Rievaulx Abbey
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Easby Abbey, from the River Swale
Private Collection

Easby Abbey, from the River Swale
Manchester Art Gallery

Easby Abbey, from the River Swale
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Bridge at Warkworth, with the Church Beyond
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Richmond, Yorkshire: The Seventeenth-Century House Known as St Nicholas
British Museum, London

Richmond Castle and Bridge, from the River Swale
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino

Richmond Castle and Bridge, from the River Swale
Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool

Richmond Castle and Town, from the South East
Private Collection

Barnard Castle, from the River Tees
British Museum, London

Egglestone Abbey, from the River Tees
Gallery Oldham

Egglestone Abbey, on the River Tees
British Museum, London

Durham Cathedral and Castle, from the River Wear
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Durham Cathedral and Castle, from the River Wear
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Durham Cathedral and Castle, from the River Wear
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Durham Castle and Cathedral, from below the Weir
Private Collection, Norfolk

Durham Castle and Cathedral, from below the Weir
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Durham Castle and Cathedral, from below the Weir; Dryburgh Abbey with the Eildon Hills Beyond
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

Durham Cathedral, from the South West
Private Collection

St Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Private Collection

Tynemouth Priory, from the Coast
Cleveland Museum of Art

Bothal Castle, from the River Wansbeck
Private Collection

A River Scene with a Tower, Said to Be the Tyne near Hexham
Leeds Art Gallery

Warkworth Castle, from the River Coquet
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Warkworth Castle, from the River Coquet
Private Collection, Norfolk

The Bridge at Warkworth, with the Castle Beyond
Untraced Works

Dunstanburgh Castle, Viewed from a Distance
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Dunstanburgh Castle: The Lilburn Tower
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Lindisfarne: An Interior View of the Ruins of the Priory Church
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Lindisfarne: An Interior View of the Ruins of the Priory Church
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge

An Interior View of the Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Church
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Lindisfarne: The Nave and Crossing of the Priory Church
British Museum, London

An Exterior View of the Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Church
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

An Exterior View of the Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Church
Private Collection

York Minster, from the South East, Layerthorpe Bridge and Postern to the Right
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Dryburgh Abbey: The South Transept Looking North
Private Collection

Dryburgh Abbey: The South Transept from the Cloister
Private Collection

Melrose Abbey: The Ruined Presbytery and the East Window
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown

Melrose Abbey: The Ruined Presbytery and the East Window
Cooper Gallery, Barnsley

Melrose Abbey, from the North East
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York

Jedburgh Abbey, from the North East
Private Collection

Jedburgh Abbey, from Jed Water
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

The Village of Jedburgh, with the Abbey Ruins
British Museum, London

The Village of Jedburgh, with the Abbey Ruins
Private Collection, Bedfordshire

The West Front of Jedburgh Abbey
British Museum, London

Jedburgh Abbey, from the South East
Blickling Hall, Norfolk (National Trust)

The Ruins of the Lady Chapel, near Bothal
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence

Bamburgh Castle, from the Village
Guy Peppiatt Fine Art Ltd

St Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool

Richmond, Yorkshire: The Seventeenth-Century House Known as St Nicholas
Private Collection

An Interior View of Fountains Abbey: The East Window from the Presbytery
Graves Gallery, Sheffield

St Mary’s, Old Malton, on the River Derwent
Untraced Works

York: Pavement, Looking towards All Saints
Private Collection
Revisions & Feedback
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About this Work
This dramatic view of Lindisfarne Castle, with the ruins of the priory church in the distance, was no doubt based on a drawing made on Girtin’s visit to the north east in 1796. A different view of the castle (TG1113) is one of three on-the-spot sketches the artist made on his visit to Holy Island, off the Northumberland coast, and the five different compositions that resulted constitute the most comprehensive survey of a location encountered on the tour. Although the castle features in the distance of one of the views of the priory, it was the twelfth-century ruins of the church, with its associations with the earliest days of Christianity in Britain, that was Girtin’s main focus. This is not surprising given the fact that the location of the castle is in no way as spectacular as Girtin chose to represent it. Built in the sixteenth century on a hill no more than thirty metres high, the castle was not even a ruin when Girtin visited as it was still in use as a garrison. The key to realising the dramatic potential of an unprepossessing site lies in Girtin’s adoption of a boldly centralised composition, which was derived from his study of John Robert Cozens (1752–97). Having created versions of works such as An Unidentified Fort on a Cliff by the Sea (TG0662) for Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833) in collaboration with Turner, Girtin was equipped to develop a dramatic composition that unites the fourteenth-century tower and the rocky outcrop into a monumental form of great power. Girtin employed a similar structure in a number of other north-eastern views, including Bamburgh Castle (TG1104) and the comparable Dunstanburgh Castle (TG1101), which, given that it has the same dimensions, may even have been conceived as a pair with this work.
Girtin’s sleight of hand when it comes to the composition would be worth little were it not accompanied by a range of effects in keeping with the subject’s dramatically enhanced appearance. Using a narrow palette of blues, an olive green and a warmer earth colour, the artist succeeds in evoking a range of effects, from the rain clouds to the left to the lengthening shadows of the sunlit area to the right, the latter of which contrast effectively with the deep gloom that envelops the castle itself. The smoke that drifts across the scene from the limestone works is of particular interest as it constitutes one of the first instances of Girtin using an area of opaque bodycolour. In this case, the artist has floated touches of blue over the white to evoke the effect of smoke. The combined result of the artist’s technique and his composition is, according to Adele Holcomb, a powerful image of the ruined castle as ‘an enactment of an ideal of self-sufficiency and fortitude’ (Holcomb, 1974, p.31). Holcomb’s identification of Girtin as the originator of one of the key ‘symbolic elements in Romantic landscape’ is part of a sustained attack on the still prevalent influence of a formalist reading of landscape painting, concerning which Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak’s book on the artist is singled out for particular criticism (Girtin and Loshak, 1954). The issue, Holcomb continues, is not just that the authors of the ‘standard monograph on the artist’ miss the fact of ‘Girtin’s priority in the genesis of the motif … of the heroic castle’ but also that writers on Turner have in turn failed to see the origin of works such as Dolbadarn Castle (Royal Academy of Arts, London (03/1383)). Holcomb’s attack on the standard thesis that Turner’s view of Dolbadarn was influenced by Richard Wilson (1713/14–82) is part of a wider point about the way in which castles were much more prominent amongst Girtin’s earliest subjects. It was only as a result of Turner following in Girtin’s footsteps in his 1797 tour of the northern counties and sketching the same subjects, she concludes, that he caught up with his contemporary (Holcomb, 1974, pp.56–57).
The group of views of Northumbrian castles from 1797 and 1798 illustrate for the first time one of the most idiosyncratic features of Girtin’s mature finished watercolours: the incorporation of the drying fold found in the cartridge and wrapping papers he used. This manifests itself in this work and in Dunstanburgh Castle: The Lilburn Tower (TG1101) as a vertical band where the watercolour washes have accumulated in the disturbance in the paper’s surface caused when it was laid on a line to dry out. Such is the vigour of Girtin’s style that this potentially disruptive feature appears in keeping with the overall effect of the work, however. A close inspection of the watercolour reveals another feature that is common to many of the works that resulted from the 1796 tour: the lower part of Girtin’s signature has been lost. This does not mean that the drawing has been cut down; rather, it indicates that it was initially surrounded by the artist’s original border, onto which the inscription had partly strayed, so that when the mount was removed, part of the signature disappeared too. A large and imposing work such as this was no doubt commissioned to hang on the wall, but the frame would have left the border visible until, at a later date, changes in display fashion led to the scrapping of what was once an integral part of the work.
1796 - 1797
Lindisfarne Castle
TG1113
1794 - 1797
An Unidentified Fort on a Cliff by the Sea
TG0662
1798 - 1799
Bamburgh Castle
TG1104
1797 - 1798
Dunstanburgh Castle: The Lilburn Tower
TG1101
1797 - 1798
Dunstanburgh Castle: The Lilburn Tower
TG1101